Giants quarterback Eli Manning struggled for a single word to describe the performance of his team Thursday night against the Broncos.

“Inept” would have worked fine. Three first downs in the first half, three turnovers, two of which led to 10 Broncos points, and only two field goals for the game.

“We have to play better football,” Manning said. “There’s nothing really to describe it right now. We still have five games and a lot can happen in those five games.”

Manning and Giants coach Tom Coughlin bemoaned an offense that generated but two second-half field goals.

“We knew we had to come out in the second half and play better,” Manning said. “We had to settle for field goals, and in those situations we had to get touchdowns and get back into the game and put some pressure on them.”

Denver’s pass rush harassed Manning all night. The Broncos had three sacks, two by Elvis Dumervil, and when they weren’t sacking Manning, they were putting pressure on him.

“We had a good plan, but we didn’t execute it,” Manning said. “We got into too many bad situations. We couldn’t get into the mix of our offense in the first half. Their pass rush was good, and they had some good blitzes that they got us with. When you get sacked it’s second- or third-and-long.”

Coughlin said his game plan included running the football, winning the turnover battle and controlling the time of possession. The Giants were 0-for-3 on those counts.

The Broncos won the turnover battle 3-1, the rushing game 138-57 and the time of possession 35:30-24.30.

“We had no production and that was very frustrating,” Coughlin said. “It’s disappointing for me to talk about this game. If we had scored touchdowns, it would have put some gasoline in our tanks.

“Their pass rush was good because they didn’t have anything else to defend.”

Irv Moss worked as a full-time reporter for The Denver Post from 1956 until his retirement in 2016, making him one of the longest-serving journalists in the country. He first worked for the newspaper as a copy boy in early 1953, twice leaving the paper to do some electrician work, before returning in 1956. He covered every sport in the state of Colorado in his 60-year career, including the Colorado Rockies, Olympics, and high school sports.

Want a reason why the state of Colorado will be back in the NCAA Tournament in 2020? The Colorado Buffaloes have received 96.1 percent of their scoring, 96.9 percent of their rebounds and 97.3 percent of their assists from players other than seniors this winter. Up at Colorado State, first-year coach Niko Medved got 79.1 percent of his points, 88.8...